February 10, 2006

I have seen this offer in a variety of e-mails I subscribe to, and here are their various marketing challenges:

1. From vendor to customer: "Send us names of people who might be interested in our service, and we'll enter you in a drawing for a brand new I-Pod!"

2. From newsletter publisher to subscriber: "Forward this newsletter to 8 or more of your friends and become eligible to win an I-Pod Nano!"

3. From marketing company to online subscribers: "Comlplete our survey and register to win an I-Pod Nano."

And so on. One thing is absolutely certain when competing for that high priority Inbox status - you have to give to get. Whether it is valuable information, offers not obtainable anywhere else, or a new TV, the give-to-get concept is what makes successful e-mail campaigns.

And I would love to win a new I-Pod! Then I could listen during my daily half hour walk to one of my favorite and very entertainling podcasts, "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" downloaded from this site: http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=35

February 06, 2006

This is a complete and easy to use marketing resource that offers news and lists of resources, like many similar sites.

What I like about this is their Vendor Selector tool. Even keeping in mind that just about anyone can sign up to be listed, this directory can come in handy if you are looking to compare vendors in specific areas. For example, look at the free listing for Email Service Providers and at the very least it gives you links to the web sites of many of the providers in the industry. Once you link out to the vendor's site, you can do your own comparing!

February 02, 2006

This time-consuming e-mail faux-pas is easy to correct. When a message is sent to a group and you one of the recipients, you can reply back either to the whole group or to the sender exclusively. Right here is where I recommend spending a minute to consider how it may serve everyone better use "Reply" instead of "Reply to All." It will spare the rest of the group the time involved in opening, reading and deleting your message.

And if the original sender decides your reply is worth sending to the whole group, they can always "Forward" the message themselves.

Take care of your e-mail recipients and they are more likely to respond to you when you really need them!